Bakkafjörður is among the smallest and loneliest places on the Arctic Coast Way, a village of perhaps seventy people on the north-eastern edge of Iceland, close to the base of the Langanes peninsula. It sits on a low, boggy shore beside the bay of Bakkaflói, with a harbour, a few houses, a church and a view of the sea that goes on to the horizon. The name means the bank fjord, and the surroundings are open moorland, lakes and sea cliffs rather than mountains. A fishing economy kept the village alive, and it survives on little but stubbornness.
The land around it is wild and mostly empty. To the north, the Langanes peninsula runs out into the Arctic Ocean for some fifty kilometres, with cliffs where thousands of gannets, fulmars and kittiwakes nest in the summer, and the abandoned farms at its end are reached by a rough track. The weather is cold and often foggy, even in July, and winds can be fierce. In midsummer the sun barely sets, and the light over the water goes gold and pink for hours, while in winter the northern lights are strong.
Getting here is a journey. The Arctic Coast Way, which begins at Hvammstangi in the north-west, finishes here after more than nine hundred kilometres, and the last stretches are a mixture of tarmac and gravel, with long gaps between settlements. Route 85 is the main road along the coast, and its surface varies from smooth to rough, with loose stone, potholes and the occasional ford after rain. Sheep and the odd reindeer wander across, and you should expect to ride slowly. Fog can come in within minutes.
Services are sparse. Carry food, water and a repair kit, and tell somebody where you are going. The village has a small guesthouse and a swimming pool heated by geothermal water, and in the evening, if the weather allows, you may be the only person on the shore.